


M. sylvatica

by canto



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Trans Barnabas Bennett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24916951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canto/pseuds/canto
Summary: The days leading up to Barnabas Bennett's death, a tragedy in four acts.
Relationships: (past & background), Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	M. sylvatica

**Author's Note:**

> Work contains strongly implied self-harm, as well as the contemplation of death, derealization, and (briefly) dysphoria.
> 
> Check endnotes on addendum regarding historical accuracy.

When stripped bare of anything else, he finds it's easiest to fall back on the familiarity of grief. He picked himself clean until he could see through his skin, but it's burrowed itself deeper yet, akin to corruption of the bone tissue. Grief—he knows it well, yes, stolen and distorted and adopted by grief before he could really articulate why it hurt so much.

He knows mourning _friends acquaintances fleeting sometimes-lovers_ because he pulled away from them before they could, before another was disenchanted finding out just how bad at pretending he is. Lying isn't his forte. Never was. He favours honesty so often it's too easily misinterpreted as naivety (—misinterpreted? He hopes, he does pray so—), too eager to compliment and too quick to criticise. It’s _improper,_ he would hear, improper to be an open book, each chapter detailing exactly how to fall and fall and _fall_ until he can't pick up the pieces of how to maintain a single fucking relationship anymore.

He knows grief that parades around as anger, as spite, as self-destruction. ( _Bring it before the courts,_ he snarls. Dares Lukas to demand repayment once more. There’s a warning coloured in Jonah’s voice, admonition about not playing with fire. Not when it's Mordechai. It's not despite, but because of it that he welcomes the risk.) Dear God above, he _knows_ seeking ruin because it's better than to let himself mourn properly.  
  
There’s a gravestone in Kensal Green designated as belonging to a Thaddeus J. Bennett which he hadn't dared look at ever since the lych bell was rung. In no world should have he been able to afford Kensal Green, but the Lukas family had their links to certain graveyards, and he thought—

He thought—

He could visit it now, he thinks. As some form of penance. He also thinks it would be mockery to Teddy’s memory to visit his grave while confined to this empty world.   
(The anger occasionally takes shape of how dare he _how dare he leave him alone_ how dare he die _didn’t you promise me not to leave?_ mother and father are long gone now, who else but you.  
It’s ugly, but he's tired of pretending he can't be so so selfish.)

Grief, yes, he knows it intimately.

But, but. He could not have anticipated what it is to mourn one’s own loss of humanity. (Another’s, he did. Jonah is all sharp teeth and sharper edges and Barnabas does not forget he wasn't always so.) He can't say it's gradual, he can't imply the passage of time. 

That’s the thing about the Forsaken, isn't it? Time as a curiosity suspended in horrible stasis; any clock Barnabas may find sitting still, hands unmoving. Except. A persistent ticking trails behind him, a stray set on sustaining the approach of his decomposition.   
He has heard of tinnitus, restless leafing through any and all books, one too many conversations with Dr. Fanshawe. And he knows it’s a ringing, a hissing, a buzzing, but it's not a ticking. Certainly, he knows of insanity, of a psyche’s neurosis, and he does entertain the idea for a while. Amuses himself considering that this reality is solely a figment of a sick mind, plagued by miasma or some such. It would surely explain the fog. 

Too easy. 

(A lesson in counterfeit arrogance: It didn't really bother him at first.  
  
As unnerving the silence could be, there is solace and freedom in being on your own. He always understood that, sought only his own company for the longest time. He was just fine without others’ presence.  
Covent Garden should never be this peaceful, but it’s a welcome relief. It wasn’t unlike being the only visitor in a museum. If he just ignores how there are doors that still slam, how there are curtains that are still drawn—well.

It might be some semblance of pride that urges him to continue with his daily routine. To not inspect how his hands shake. A shallow bowl, a jug of milk he spills more than usual, turning towards the bedchamber, waiting for Ophelia to come running out—London’s cats are so terribly mistreated, he found the poor thing near the flower markets with a broken leg—  
It crashes into him and he drops the bowl hears it shatter feels his resolve shatter sees the world shatter.   
it's empty _it's so fucking empty_ he wants to feel something except no blood spills anymore, an edged delta cut open from a rivermouth and yes there’s the sediment ugly ugly fog curls out of wounds but that's _**wrongwrongwrong**_

—how can you hope to stitch back together?)

It takes all the glass and porcelain in his house lying at his feet for him to accept that he can't stay in London anymore. Not for as long as he can still recognise what should and should not be.   
There’s all the time in the world and none at all, so he settles on making his way to where he thinks Edinburgh should be. The lack of a sun or moon doesn't allow him to judge whether it's an illusion or not how short the journey is. Clinging to the fur of his overcoat does nothing to stop the cold that settled itself down in his bones, and he remembers how cold a corpse is, and he wonders. Allows himself to consider that he’s a phantasm left to wander a world devoid of anything for as long as it will have him.   
In the grand scheme of things, he knows his life is infinitesimally insignificant and if he’s swallowed whole it won't stop the world from turning. But he can try. He owes himself that. 

_(I can't. I can't.)_

  
One of his earliest clear memories is of his brother sneaking them into Drury Lane shortly after their mother passed away. No one cared enough to take notice of two kids wandering in midway through a play, a comedy of some kind, either too enraptured by the actors on stage or assuming their parents were around. 

It’s loud. It’s the first thing he notices, noise flooding from all sides, music and laughter and resounding speeches and he wants to hide somewhere far far away from it but Teddy looks so excited to be there that he doesn't have the heart to tell him he wants to go already.  
Barnabas makes himself smaller, tugging at his sleeve until he looks down at him. Teddy frowns for a second, before his face clears and he exclaims a victorious _look!_ and lifts him right up, up until he can see the stage as well. It wasn't what he had in mind, but—

He doesn't remember what the play was called. He never got to see it through as Teddy quickly realised it wasn’t age appropriate at all, but he does remember young Sylvia. Sylvia, who donned man’s clothes and called herself Jack Wilful and sauntered around the stage like it was her second skin. The scene replays in his mind over and over again, gradually edited to cut out the audience, and then the other actors, and he doesn't even notice when memory-Teddy doesn't say his name— _no, never his name_ —anymore. 

It's the building block of the only story he would have a starring role in, and for the longest time it goes like this:

His brother picks up on his fixation with the play, watching in amusement as he re-enacts Jack Wilful’s journey to Shrewsbury. He doesn't question it when he borrows his clothes way too big for him—it only makes sense he would assume it’s the theatrical performance Barnabas was taken with, perhaps even a career he would want to pursue someday. He would offer to take him to Drury Lane again, told him about the new productions they were putting on.

But.

Even then Barnabas knew that's not him. The panache and exaggerated movement went against his nature however much he might have tried to emulate it at first. Undeterred, he would read through many other such plays, tried to identify what it was that captivated him so much, before finally giving up a few more years down the line. In what could have been both charity and cruelty to his own self, he didn't examine it much further and would blame it on unwillingness to expose himself to the cacophony of theatre again. 

(It’s only a lot later that he would realise drunk on laudanum the extraordinary loneliness of never recognising your own reflection.)

Patience is a virtue, he would soon learn. It's not too long before his father’s senility sets in, eventually letting him forget he ever had any children apart from Thaddeus. Barnabas can't say he lost any sleep over it. To be forgotten is a mercy, he thinks. Makes it that much easier to forge a death certificate. It may be somewhat of a pyrrhic victory, erasing himself from the family tree, barring himself from inheritance, but it's a price he's more than willing to pay if it means never stepping inside the manor again.  
He takes the chance to move away and settle himself in one of Covent Garden’s streets, and he can finally breathe, he forgot what it feels like to _breathe,_ opening a bookshop under his own name, welcoming the triumph of knowing who he is. Teddy, bless him, did his best to understand, and if he tries hard enough now he can remember still how overwhelming relief could be—

—he doesn't know what his brother looked like.

  
It was a gamble to rely on the distinct feeling of being watched and known and picked apart piece by piece to locate the institute. He was only there once, at its opening, back when Jonah's fervour for the supranatural was still charming. Back when he could still look him in the eye.   
He supposes it should give him hope; that maybe, perhaps, Jonah knows of his predicament. To some degree, it does. If only because it's a brief respite from the ever-present stupor. 

He traces the plaque at the entrance without paying much attention to it, considering his next move. Magnus's carefully hoarded collection of texts was as good a start to getting out of here as any. And Barnabas is certain he mentioned gathering statements from people who offered up their experiences with phenomena they couldn't quite explain away. If anyone before him has gotten out and lived to tell the tale, then he could hold onto that anchor to what once was his reality. 

He can't muster up any disappointment when, no, of course not, of course there wouldn't be any records detailing anything more than remains of bleached teeth and bones spat out by fog. It's easier, though, reading through detached accounts of human misery, rather than wallowing in his own. He finds solace in clinical assessment of his situation, in not considering anything beyond the objective facts.  
  
Jonah's office isn't hard to find, and neither is the ink and quill proudly perched on the writing desk. He drafts a report on his circumstances, throws it away, drafts another one, throws it away too. The cycle continues for two sizeable stacks of parchment. He takes a step back, assesses the moment his writing turns ineligible, the paragraph it turns into a steady staccato of _it's cold it's cold it's cold it's cold it's cold it's cold._  
He goes back to his initial assessment of acute neurosis. Considers giving it more merit. Doesn't discard it. 

Barnabas lets himself write one more statement, this time in the form of a letter, this time words taking on the shape of an appeal. (Against sentence or conviction?, he wants to ask, because pleading not guilty would be a lie.) The ink takes a longer time to dry, and he has to fight the urge to smear it right across the parchment, obscuring the unsteadiness of his handwriting.   
He acknowledges that the weight of being watched is heaviest he's ever felt it with a flinch. It doesn't falter, and bile builds up in his throat and he knows, knows as much as certainty can exist here, that it won't ever falter now. He leans back, takes a shuddering breath. He isn't stupid.   
The letter is still in his hand when he leaves the institute behind.

  
He's back in Kent. The blur between leftover memories doesn't provide the answer as to when, and he's too tired to properly care. He hadn't noticed until now how peculiar it is the garden at Moorland House remained untouched by the fog's influence. Unless, he muses, the flora simply adapted. If such a simple life form could coexist with it, did he not have it in him as well? Or is it precisely the complexity of human mind that puts it at conflict with abandonment?  
  
He goes to pluck one of the flowers— _A. nemorosa,_ his mind helpfully supplies—but he finds he's clutching onto a letter throughly mangled. He carefully straightens it out. _My dear Jonah,_ familiar handwriting begins, _You must help me._ He can't quite place where the familiarity comes from, but if he follows the loops of each you and the skewed flourish that marks the beginning of each new sentence, he can evoke something he wants to identify as self-hatred. Curious, yes, but he ignores it. He parts the stems of the _M. sylvatica_ crowded around a dried-out pond, providing the letter with burial ground. After a moment of consideration, he crawls towards the patch brighter than anything else in this world ( _T. patula,_ they were someone's favourite once), and curls into himself.

The ticking stops.

**Author's Note:**

> Kensal Green Cemetery as we know it was opened in 1833, while Barnabas's death was canonically around 1824. That said, Jonny Sims fucked around with historical accuracy a whole lot himself (hansom cabs were only patented in 1834, thank you very much!), very understandably so taking the artistic license seeing as TMA-verse is affected a whole damn lot by the influence of the Dread Powers. Ergo. I wouldn't find it hard to believe that under pressure from avatars of the End or potentially the Lonely, certain cemeteries—or, really, burial sites of any kind—would have an accelerated founding date. The butterfly effect of sentient fear, effectively.
> 
> Furthermore, regarding the usage of the term 'tinnitus' at one point:  
> • As far as we know, the term dates back to 1843.  
> • Jean Marc Gaspard Itard is credited as having identified the two forms of tinnitus in 1812, but I can't for the life of me find his original writings to see as to how he referred to it.  
> • Referring to it as tinnitus is just... way more convenient. What can I say.
> 
> (Also—the play mentioned is called _The Recruiting Officer_ as written by George Farquhar! It was just one of the many contemporary plays featuring a breeches role, and really just the first one I thought of^^)


End file.
